Drake-Willias Steel Inc.

cycle of excavation, the bucket is positioned above the material to be excavated and, then, lowered. Then, the dragrope is drawn so that the bucket is dragged along the surface of the material. The new product line, named “Omaha Buckets,” helped the company survive the Great Depression and through World War II. After Hugh Williams died in 1931, Art and Walt ran the business. When Walt retired in 1955, Art became sole President. The company changed its name again, this time to Drake-Williams Steel, and the firm shifted its focus to the fabrication of structural steel and supplying other steel products. Art’s two sons, Hugh II and Mike, joined the business in the late 1950s, and took it over when Art retired in 1964. Hugh’s two sons, John and Dave, became the fourth generation to join the company in the late ‘70s, and by the mid-‘80s the pair had added the Rebar Division. In the early 1990s, and just before they retired, Hugh and Mike bought the facilities at 1602 North 11th Street, which became, and still is, the company’s largest structural steel fabrication plant. John and Dave bought the firm and spent the next several years renovating and adding to the fabrication facility, making it into a world-class operation. The company acquired the Mountain Steel & Supply Co. of Denver, Colorado, which, in 2011, became the Mountain Steel Division of Drake-Williams Steel, another structural steel fabrication facility. In 2014, John and Dave transferred ownership from the Williams family to an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP). “For a period of ten to fifteen years, John and Dave worked to develop an Executive Leadership Council and a culture here to where, at some point, they would be able to hand over the company,” says Derrick Fitton, Director of Operations at the Structural Steel Division. “The employees bought out John and Dave’s ownership rights, and we’ve been an ESOP for six years, now. And it’s been a very good transition; it worked out to everyone’s benefit.